Some school districts are helping to fill a shortage of bilingual teachers through international teacher exchanges, but that strategy for alleviating shortages is still "relatively unexplored," according to a report released yesterday by the Migration Policy Institute.

Researchers Aaron Terrazas and Michael Fix give an overview of how school districts are participating in the short-term U.S.-Mexico Binational Migrant Education Program and long-term exchanges under cooperative agreements with Spain or Mexico to bring foreign teachers to their communities.

Most teachers with the binational migrant education program work for U.S. school districts during the summer, not during the regular school year. They generally provide supplemental education to students who have had gaps in their schooling during the academic year.

But teachers coming to the United States through the cooperative agreements with Spain or Mexico typically work in districts throughout the school year. The report says that many teach English-as-a-second-language or bilingual courses in elementary schools. In my reporting on these exchanges, I've also found that a fair number teach Spanish-language classes at the secondary level.

The numbers of teachers hired in U.S. school districts through these exchanges aren't big. Since 1992, 4,700 teachers from Spain have been employed in U.S. schools through the U.S.-Spain visiting-teacher program. And since 2001, 182 teachers have been employed through the U.S.-Mexico visiting-teacher program.

Mexico has agreements with California, New Mexico, Utah, Illinois, and Oregon for long-term exchanges. Spain has agreements with 31 states, including California and New York.

The report provides in one place the available data about these programs. So it's a handy source for any district that may be considering this option.

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This coming spring, Tennessee will give its state assessment to English-language learners for the first time in "simplified English," according to a spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Education. The state is calling the alternative test form "English Linguistically Simplified Assessment" and it will be used for math, reading, science, and social studies. While the test items use rudimentary English, or in testing lingo, what is often called "plain English," the content is on grade level.

The modified English includes a reliance on common words, the use of concrete words rather than abstract ones, and a reduction in the complexity of sentence structure, according to a presentation given by a state official. Some of the reading passages, however, may be the exact same as in the regular form of the test. Pearson is the contractor for development of the test.

A number of other states have alternative tests for ELLs, but it's been a year since I asked the U.S. Department of Education for an update on this issue. Several states had to stop using alternative tests for ELLs, such as portfolios, because the U.S. Department of Education didn't find them to be comparable with the states' regular tests.

Two years ago, Illinois had to drop use of its plain-English test for math and reading with English-language learners because of issues with comparability.

So, it's noteworthy than Tennessee is proceeding with a plain-English version.

Recently, the governing board of the National Assessment of Educational Progress held a public hearing on its proposals for better including ELLs in testing, and developing plain- English versions of NAEP was one of the proposals. People I heard testify at the hearing, such as a representative of the National Education Association, supported that idea.

Are any other states coming on board with plain-English versions of their content tests for ELLs?

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Diane Ravitch over at Bridging Differences observes that many charter schools "have disproportionately small numbers of children who need special education or who are English-language learners."

That complaint has been popping up in a number of different places lately.

Last month, Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj and Marcelo M. Suarez-Orozco made the same observation in the Huffington Post, basing it on data about charter schools in New York state. The month before that, an ELL advocacy group in Massachusetts made the same claim about charter schools there, which I reported on in Education Week.

A national study of charter schools in 10 states found that, on average, enrollment of ELLs in charter schools was about the same as in traditional schools. I got that information from Margaret E. Raymond, the director of the Stanford University center that conducted the study and the study's lead author, when I interviewed her back in September.

She said, however, that some charter schools, such as those in Minnesota that offer dual-immersion programs in Hmong and English, have a high concentration of ELLs and others don't.

So the information from the national study doesn't contradict Diane Ravitch's statement that "many" charter schools don't enroll as many ELLs as traditional public schools do.

I'm hoping in the next couple of years that researchers will provide richer information about ELLs and charter schools. At this point, we don't know much.

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The National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition is hosting several webinars on issues concerning ELLs, including one this week about how math teachers can best work with such students. The math webinar features the FASTMath program used in Fairfax County public schools in Virginia, and will take place this Friday, Nov. 20, from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m., Eastern time. (You'll get a link that appears to be in error and kicks you out of this blog entry, but if you click on "back" you can get to the registration page.) Earlier this week, I blogged about a free webinar on best practices for math teachers to work with ELLs that WestEd plans to host on Dec. 2.

In addition to the webinar offering professional development for math teachers, NCELA has two other webinars planned for this year about how teachers can work with ELLs. Aida Walqui, the director of the teacher professional-development program at WestEd, will be a guest for "Effective Professional Development for All Teachers With ELL Students," and Deborah J. Short, a senior research associate at the Center for Applied Lingusitics, and Linda Griffin, the director of the mathematics education unit for the Northwest Regional Education Laboratory, will be guests for a webinar, "Implementing PD for Content Area Teachers." Dates for those webinars haven't yet been finalized.

Lastly, the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute is hosting a free webinar this Thursday, Nov. 19, from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m., Eastern time, on how government officials and administrators in the juvenile-justice system can help parents who have limited proficiency in English understand the system. Register here.

I can imagine it would be overwhelming to be a parent who doesn't speak much English to understand what's happening if his or her child gets involved in the court system.

It seems to me that it would be a good idea for someone to have a webinar on how schools can work with parents with limited proficiency in English to understand how to navigate school systems as well.

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Some Massachusetts lawmakers are pushing for the state to permit undocumented students to pay in-state tuition rates at public universities, according to an Associated Press article. It says Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat, supports a bill that would provide in-state tuition rates to students living illegally in the country. The former governor, Mitt Romney, a Republican, opposed the idea.

The article says that 10 states—California, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin—permit undocumented students to pay in-state tuition rates.

I've noticed how the undocumented students have become increasingly organized in pressing legislators both at the state and national levels to address their concerns. The article notes that they've been active in lobbying state lawmakers in Massachusetts.

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In the decade I've been writing about English-language learners, I've noticed a large increase in training of mainstream teachers, rather than just ELL specialists, on how to work with those students.

WestEd is adding to this training by providing a live webinar for mainstream teachers of math to teach ELLs in their classroom who have different levels of language proficiency.

The webinar, "Making Mathematics Accessible for English-Learners," will be offered Wednesday, Dec. 2, from 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m., Eastern Time. Presenters will be Cathy Carroll, a senior project director at WestEd, and John Carr, a senior research associate for the evaluation research team at the research organization.

Sign up here.

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The three top ways that federal stimulus funds are being used to improve schooling for English-language learners are to improve the quality of teachers, step up services at the middle and high school levels, and increase instructional time through after-school or summer programs, according to a survey conducted by the Working Group on ELL Policy. The organization is made up of researchers who specialize in studying ELLs and make recommendations on federal policy for such students.

The working group has also posted on its Web site, which was launched today, a case study of how the St. Paul school district in Minnesota is using stimulus funds for ELLs. I included that district in an article I wrote back in May about how four large urban districts are targeting English-learners with funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The case study gives a lot more detail about the St. Paul district's plans than I provided. For example, it says that stimulus funds will help to pay for K-5 reading materials, which benefit ELLs in that they include a strong oral-language component.

If you've been following this blog, you know that recently I've had the chance to report on the importance of the teaching of oral language to English-learners and other students who are at risk academically.

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The blogging has been light this week because I've been taking some days off work. Next week, I expect to be back up to speed in posting news nearly every day. Readers, please don't go away.

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Representatives of education organizations attending a public hearing on how best to include English-language learners and students with disabilities in the National Assessment of Educational Progress this week expressed support for the ELL policies proposed by the test's governing board. I wrote about the hearing in an article published yesterday by Education Week.

The board proposes that reporting of the data about ELLs' performance on NAEP be matched with information about their English-language proficiency as measured by the state English-language proficiency tests. It also proposes expanding the use of native-language support, such as Spanish translations of tests, to all subjects other than reading and writing. Currently, Spanish translations are available only for math and science.

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Yesterday, President Obama visited a charter school in Madison, Wis., where 39 percent of students are English-language learners. But I don't see anything in news coverage about his visit that says he mentioned the educational needs of ELLs. (See update below.) It seems like a missed opportunity.

An editorial in the Wisconsin State Journal says the school, James C. Wright Middle School, takes an inclusive approach to educating ELLs and students with disabilities, which includes co-teaching and support for a universally designed curriculum. I'm intrigued.

Update: I skimmed his speech and see that President Obama did mention English-language learners at one point, saying that a commitment to education means "boosting the numbers of quality teachers who can help our special education and English-language learners meet high standards—as you've done here at Wright." But that still doesn't tell us much.

The Journal Sentinel of Milwaukee, Wis., reports the president mentioned he was working to ensure that children of undocumented immigrants can go to college. I interpret that statement as the president's reiteration of this support for the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act, or "DREAM Act." The president's remark also likely indicates he realized a lot of his audience were Latinos, many of whom support that act.

But it would have been great if the president could have highlighted some ways that Wright Middle School is successful with ELLs, if in fact that is the case, since such students make up such a large proportion of the school population. Educators are looking for models for how to educate these students, particularly at the middle and high school levels.

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